Finland: island appears on Lake Inari, the mirage taken over by border guards

A large rock formation appeared on Lake Inari, in Finland. A mirage due to atmospheric conditions and low temperatures.

On February 23, a photo was published of a rare phenomenon on the Twitter account of the Border Guard in Lapland, Finland. The patrol, crossing the territory, has noticed a very strange formation appear on the horizon, a sort of new island in Lake Inari. There was nothing to suggest that on that day there was a tectonic movement in the area, capable of producing a geological formation of this kind; but nevertheless, it seemed that a new rock face had appeared from the earth. The mystery, however, was resolved in a few minutes, when the guards verified that what they were observing was a mirage, an optical illusion, more recurrent for torrid climates.

Few know, however, that even the intense cold, under certain conditions, non-existent things can be observed. In the case of Lapland, temperatures were 25 degrees below zero. The mirage occurs, in fact, when the layers of the atmosphere reach different temperatures, with different density and different refractive index. For this series of reasons, the trajectories of the reflected lights of distant objects are distorted by confusing the observer.